I am equally certain that the present verses do not advise either animal sacrifice or child sacrifice. There is a hidden meaning.

Crowley, as I recall, held the same basic view; and, concretizing these verses into events in his personal life, he saw their fulfillment in the death of the daughter he shared with Rose. (In later life he lost other children. His desire to sire viable progeny unfolded in a long story of grief and loss.)

I am certain, however, that there is a deeper meaning, one of universal significance. It is not to Mr. and Mrs. Aleister Crowley that these prophecies are made, but, rather, to the Beast and the Scarlet Woman.

The Beast and the Scarlet Woman are archetypes. They are not individuals, but officers in the spiritual hierarchy of humanity during the Aeon of Horus. They are easiest to understand as a solar-phallic representation of Chokmah (666), and a lunar-yonic representation of Binah (667); but they are much deeper Briatic realities than this. Within the microcosm, they are the Chiah and Neshamah, respectively.

Probably the hardest word to understand is "cattle." How is it to be taken? This leaves verse 12 a great mystery.

It has always been easiest for me to think of "cattle" as meaning the generic masses - what are elsewhere in this Book referred to as "the people," the multitudinous avatars of Public Opinion. This view recurs and persists over the years despite my determination to view this in a more even and orderly fashion; so I accept that this is the likely meaning.

In the world - "big," macrocosm - these are the general (mob) populace. Their "little," or microcosmic, counterparts are the random and babbling thoughts that populate the superficial regions of our minds. ("Cattle" = lots of Alephs (Air) = little thoughts.)

But before these cattle are sacrificed, a child is to be sacrificed. This part is almost easy. It is the child of the Beast and the Scarlet Woman, of Chokmah and Binah. Their "child" may be Da'ath or Tiphereth - and, as we know from the Zohar, these two are often regarded as one and the same. (It may represent the progressive sacrifice of each Middle Pillar sephirah, progressively, depending on one's grade.)

It is useful and easy to see the sacrifice of superficial thoughts as a consequence of the sacrifice of Da'ath, Knowledge.

However, I am inclined to accept that Tiphereth (Vav, the Qabalistic "Son") is the correct solution here. We have seen, in prior verses of this chapter, the progressive overthrowing of the archetypes of times past; and now it appears that even the heart of Beauty, as previously recognized, is to be sacrificed upon the altar of that Higher Light to which even 666 and 667 turn their uplifted sight.

Certainly the ego, as formulated and understood in the past, is now due to fulfill its function by its surrender to a higher truth. Humanity under Osiris evolved an ego; under Horus, this eventually must be sacrificed in its completion and fulfillment.

But not now.

That is - per v. 13 - that is all premature. It shall occur within the term of this present Aeon of the Child - within the lives of the Beast and Scarlet Woman - but not within the lives of Aleister and Rose.

In fact, the real purpose of this Aeon of the Child is the sacrifice - literally, "making sacred," or sanctification - of the Child. (This is also the technique that consequently sanctifies the "cattle" as well.)

"But not now." Surely this is advisory that the indicated results are still a way down the road. Yet the formulation of this verse is intriguing. Three words, of three letters each. All three are formed of a vowel between two consonants. The vowels - u, o, o - are all equivalent to Vav, as if the center spirit of these words were 6 6 6. The consonants - b-t, n-t, n-w - are as if in progression, each evolving into the other with one small change; and each is representative of Nuit. ("b-t" = 11; "n-t" is "not" or "Nuit;" "n-w" = NV, Nu.)

In verse 14, "Ye" is again Yod-Heh, reinforcing the Chokmah-Binah interpretation of 666 and 667. Verse 15 shows their union, and the "sacrifice" of the "child" as the gateway to the Vision of Sorrow. ("Sad" - possibly also meaning Sod - is 65 in Anglo-Hebraic script.) The verse number,15, is the value of YH ("ye") and of HY, "lamentation;" and it is a number of Saturn.”